Note: Greetings and salutations to all Zonebots! I’m Xsociate and Richard has graciously offered me a guest posting stint this weekend while he’s away to keep the content rolling. So I hope everyone enjoys my some times serious and some times snarky take on the news and politics of the day.

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Senator and GOP presidential contender John McCain has become a staple for derisive fodder for those on the left. This is no doubt due to his credibility on such issues as the war in Iraq and foreign policy being only slightly more coherent than the current occupant in the Oval Office, which says a lot.

But now the Senator’s camp has resorted to schoolyard insults in sparring with his Democratic rivals.

McCain responds to Obama in tough enough, if predictable, language:

“While Senator Obama’s two years in the U.S. Senate certainly entitle him to vote against funding our troops, my service and experience combined with conversations with military leaders on the ground in Iraq lead me to believe that we must give this new strategy a chance to succeed because the consequences of failure would be catastrophic to our nation’s security.”

But, McCain being McCain, he can’t help himself and goes the next step in the statement’s kicker:

“By the way, Senator Obama, it’s a ‘flak’ jacket, not a ‘flack’ jacket.”

Which is to say, “there is only one of us in this argument who has ever worn the uniform.” (my words)

And if you still don’t get it, a McCain aide blows away the anthill with, well, a rocket.

“Obama wouldn’t know the difference between an RPG and a bong.” (bolds mine)

And President Bush probably doesn’t know a WMD from a DWI, so what’s your point? (Actually we are unlikely to ever know whether this is true since such knowledge, or lack there of rather, would clearly fall under the all encompassing doctrine of executive privilege.)

But seriously, this will be par for the course for the next few election cycles. The GOP have denigrated our political discourse to a mere series of “yo’ mama” comebacks because for them to try to seriously address the accusations means admitting they have some validity to them. We should expect more from our prospective candidates but given the antics of our current frat-boy-in-chief, we are only likely to see more of this as the credibility gap between the contenders becomes all the more apparent.

See Anonymous Liberal for more.

(X-posted at The Xsociate File)